Dar Williams

Raised in Chappaqua, NY, and educated at Wesleyan University, Williams' 15 year music career started in the thriving artistic community of Northampton, MA, where she began to make the rounds on the coffeehouse circuit. An early fan of her music was Joan Baez, who took Williams out on the road and recorded several of her songs. Williams self-released her debut album, The Honesty Room in 1993, then signed with Razor & Tie Entertainment in 1995, the label that would release over a half dozen of her studio albums including her most recent, 2008's Promised Land.

In the past, Williams' songwriting has located the personal in such universal topics as politics, religion, sexuality, and family. However, on Promised Land, she takes a different approach. Rather than tie the songs together around any particular theme, Williams presents a collection of disparate stories and characters. She also comments, "On this one, I was paring the stories down to their core. I wanted the songs to sound simple and down to what they were meant to be, which is hard to do. It takes a lot of knowledge to get to the point where you can say what you need to say - no more, no less."

darwilliams.com